Month: January 2018
What if people told European history like they told Native American history?
The first immigrants to Europe arrived thousands of years ago from central Asia. Most pre-contact Europeans lived together in small villages. Because the continent was very crowded, their lives were ruled by strict hierarchies within the family and outside it to control resources. Europe was highly multi-ethnic, and most tribes were ruled by hereditary leaders who commanded the majority “commoners.” These groups were engaged in near constant warfare.
Pre-contact Europeans wore clothing made of natural materials such as animal skin and plant and animal-based textiles. Women wore long dresses and covered their hair, and men wore tunics and leggings. Both men and women liked to wear jewelry made from precious stones and metals as a sign of status. Before contact, Europeans had very poor diets. Most people were farmers and grew wheat and vegetables and raised cows and sheep to eat. They rarely washed themselves, and had many diseases because they often let their animals live with them. Religion infused every part of Europeans’ lives.
Europeans believed in one supreme deity, a father figure, who they believed was made of three parts, and they particularly worshiped the deity’s son. They claimed that their god had given humans domination over the earth. They built elaborate temples to him and performed ceremonies in which they ate crackers and drank wine and believed it was the body and blood of their god, who would provide them with entrance into a wondrous afterlife called heaven when they died. Many wars were fought over disagreements about the details of this religion, each group believing their interpretation was the right one that should be spread across the land.
Now imagine that is part of a textbook that has entire chapters on the Mississippian polities of the 1200s and a detailed account of the diplomatic situation of the southeastern provinces in the 1400s and 1500s, an enormous section that goes through the history of the rise of the Triple Alliance in Mexico and goes through the rule of each tlatoani and their policies, the heritage of Teotihuacan and its legacy in later Mesoamerican politics, elaborate descriptions of the trade routes that connected and drove various nations in North America. Long explanations of the rise of various religious movements such as the calumet ceremony and Midewiwin, and how they affected political agendas and artistic trends. Pages and pages and pages going through the past thousand years of American history century by century.
And these three paragraphs are the only mention of European history before the year 1500.
What if people told European history like they told Native American history?
I’ve been thinking about my old jobs a lot, and I remembered something I had long-since forgotten that I wanted to bring up, which is A Thing that every hourly worker in the U.S. NEEDS TO KNOW.
Employers CAN NOT require you to work without pay.
You might be thinking, “Yeah, no shit, Styna!”
But here’s the thing… Sometimes, work doesn’t always look like ‘work.’ And, sometimes, employers try to get away with not paying you for work, because it doesn’t necessarily look like ‘work.’STORY TIME.
When you have to conquer Mongolia but the cat needs a walk first
are those CAT EARS
Incidentally, the artist is Tetsuya Noguchi. They have a book of surreal samurai illustrations.
**PLEASE READ/SIGNAL BOOST**
Hey all, as many of you may or may not know, I’ve been struggling a lot these past few months with my government and benefits. And I know that I have another donation post circulating but I still desperately need help to get by. I’m currently on benefits and I just before Christmas, my benefit was sanctioned and reassessed due to my mental illnesses.
My benefit comes back in full at the end of January (25th) and until then I really need help to get groceries and keep my electricity and gas meters on throughout this month.
It’s absolutely freezing in my home and my gas/electricity meters are rapidly running out, my gas literally has pennies left in it now and it’s almost out (pictured). I’m getting really desperate now.
If anyone can spare anything at all to help me get by, even just a £1/$1, please consider it.
Thank you 🙏💖💖
PAYPAL
Update: January 11th!!
Hey guys, I’m still really struggling to pay my gas/electricity bills and I’m just £40 short to keep them on and get groceries in for this month and I would be incredibly appreciative if anyone could help or spare a few £’s/$’s to help me. Or please at least share this post in hopes that someone else may be able to help instead. Thank you 🙏💖💖
It actually took me a while to figure out that it was a washing machine causing the racket up there. Seriously never heard anything like it before.
Might not know still, if it weren’t for the very British shared open drain for both kitchens. I noticed that water rushing down smelling strongly of their laundry detergent did indeed coincide with changes in the cycle of noise/vibration. Made a lot more sense then.
Just reminded with those replacement headphones coming in very handy again, I have a relatively new contender here for the most ridiculous seizure trigger ever:
The noise and vibration from upstairs’ washing machine! 🙃
It is a relatively new one, and as I commented before when that blocked drain was flooding our patio, they run it at least once a day. Usually more, and at unpredictable times. Even though they do have a kid and a dog up there, I’ve had to wonder if they’re also taking in laundry or something. It’s running that often.
At first I assumed it was just the sound, but then I had it blocked out pretty well one night and still started getting muscles twitching and jumping in rhythm with the vibrations. And it kinda went from there. That effect was freaky enough with music my nervous system hated before, but geez that was a weird experience. Happened more than once since, too, with no idea of what might have been different those times.
(One day after I got up, I managed to get a fun combo of seizurey shit from that, and one of the pain meltdowns exacerbated by having to use the headphones when I was already that overloaded. Great fun.)
If I’m on this side of the house (including the heated rooms where I spend at least 90% of the time) when it’s running, usually headphones with the right music going at a sufficient volume to drown it out will head off the worst of it. But, I suspect it’s fucking me up and sapping more energy I don’t have to spare on a regular basis now Definitely staying headachy and spacy a lot more again.
It’s particularly frustrating when there’s basically nothing to be done about something like that. I mean, at least it’s not like when we had that horrible abusive asshole up there whose loud electronic crap kept scrambling my nervous system before–and I knew good and well that if anyone said a word, he’d up the ante on purpose. Just that kind of jerk.
But, you can’t really just say, “Hello, neighbors who don’t seem to particularly like us anyway. Possibly because we come across as weird. You know that new washing machine you bought a while back? Please stop using it, because it’s giving me/my spouse seizures.” 🤔 😩
At least it’s more manageable than the awful music situation so far, and I haven’t been waking up with a chewed-up inside of the mouth or anything so far. But, that’s still been a further quality of life hit that I could do without.
Also, I have pretty much exclusively seemed to have noticeable problems with this shit when something else has been lowering my seizure threshold enough to cause problems. (Which helped it get missed and misinterpreted over the years, yeah.) Medications, celiac deficiencies, whatever rather serious factors. I’m kind of concerned now about what else might be going on to make me more susceptible, but it probably ain’t good.
Didn’t think to mention earlier, but reminded by it starting up again just as I was wanting to go to bed. (In one of the rooms right under the worst of it 😬)
This would probably be less aggravating if it were a US-style top loader with the much shorter wash cycles. With the standard European home front loaders, which heat the water and all? You’d better not want the clothes very soon. “Short wash”/“fast wash” tends to run about an hour and a half. Regular wash cycles, at least 3 hours.
Thankfully, that thing doesn’t vibrate our floors and walls for the whole 3+ hours straight. Just certain parts of the cycle.
From experience, I’ve still got probably half an hour before it settles down enough for earplugs to be enough to let me get to sleep in there, though 😩
Thankfully this is the first machine anybody has had up there that’s so strong with the noise and actually made our place vibrate. No idea what would even do that. I considered that maybe it’s some extra heavy duty commercial model, but those usually also finish a load much faster.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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